Guild Wars 2

What the what!

As I know for a fact that all Tyrian humans are classic never nudes, I can only come to the logical assumption that you, Hamfast, are, indeed, a mermaid.

Lion’s Arch is no longer safe! The only option now is to form a posse to hunt down the sea devil, not just for the safety of my crews, but for every ship that sails into harbor.

WHO IS WITH ME?

While I’m usually a bit cranky about content that’s locked behind excessive grinding/cost, I’m not entirely against it occasionally, especially in the area of weapons. While there are certain weapons I’ll never be able, or at least willing, to pay for, (looking at you, Immobulus and The Anomaly,) I don’t mind it terribly because I have plenty of good looking alternatives for weapon skins.

It’s a balancing act, certainly, because the more exclusive the content is, the fewer people get to enjoy it, but I’m okay with some skins providing a long-term goal for people who aren’t casual players, including heavy farmers and prestige hounds. It’s not a way of playing that I particularly agree with, but, hey, something for everyone, including playstyles I don’t personally enjoy.

It looks like Donari and Khisanth have answered the question, so I just wanted to add this thread’s title to “things you can click on the GW2 forums that you should absolutely not click on Craig’s List.”

No, I’m afraid it’s not possible to get the basic or complete versions anymore. Sorry!

Setting aside cultural issues, I can’t say I’d really want a Thanksgiving holiday in the game, and certainly not in November. We’re coming right out of Halloween, and about to go into Wintersday, so I’d much rather have some normal Living Story updates than make it a three-month-block of holiday content, especially when the holiday is as one-dimensional as Thanksgiving. I wouldn’t mind mobs occasionally dropping, I don’t know, turkey legs and cranberries as a joke, but it’s just a weak foundation for a game holiday, at a time of the year that’s already packed with better holidays.

He asked if you’ve played GW2, not if you’ve purchased it. ;P (Of course, he’s joking.)

In seriousness, of all the reasonable complaints to have about GW2, pay-to-win just doesn’t feel like one of them. Everything but ascended gear is reasonably obtainable without grinding for cash, and with ascended gear, money will only get you so far in crafting weapons. (And won’t help at all with trinkets.)

Heck, even with the best gear straight money can buy (exotic armor/trinkets, legendary weapons,) a player with a lot of gold isn’t going to be very far ahead of a regular player in…exotic armor/trinkets and weapons. Skills is going to be the deciding factor there much more than wealth.

That’s good, Palador. Someone needs to warn the public about the risks, and remind them what a mess they leave behind for others to clean up.

Dethan.1875:

It’s a nice outfit, I have to admit I was looking at the picture for a while before I saw the rock.

Ironically, the rate of ships crashing into the rock has gone up since that blasted siren has taken up position there.

HEY.

YOU.

LEAVE MY SAILORS ALONE.

Well, I’ll be. Shiverstone isn’t half bad-looking, either. Stardust is okay, and Crystal Guardian certainly looks like a 12g skin, at least. I’d never heard of any of these!

Thanks!

It’s a drag if you don’t live in one of the participating countries, but I’m afraid that’s just the practical reality of international contests. A lot of countries have laws relating to contests, so some countries just aren’t practical to comply with, and even if a country has compatible laws, there might not be the time and resources (for as much as can be dedicated to a promotional contest) to have someone check the laws of every country with enough confidence that they’re not going to get into legal trouble.

While I disagree with the general tone of the OP, I am a bit disappointed by the removed features from this Halloween. I wasn’t necessarily expecting Ascent to Madness to return, but I was hoping for something similar, like a spin on it starring the Bloody Prince instead of the Mad King. I enjoyed the story instances we got, but there just wasn’t much to them, and it didn’t make for a very satisfying narrative conclusion.

Between Reapers Rumble, Ascent to Madness, and the Scavenger Hunt, there’s a fair bit of content missing. I wouldn’t mind if one of those latter two didn’t return, because this year’s story is different, but I would have liked to see them replaced by something similar, because they were a lot of fun. If there aren’t the resources to replace them, I’m not sure why Halloween 2013 couldn’t be largely a copy of 2012.

Player Character.9467:

1. You can BUY exotic weapons with celestial stats and more of them are dirt cheap.

What weapons are those? o_o

Quartz-crafted weapons are account bound, and I’ve never seen tradeable weapons with Celestial stats. (Well, barring Halloween weapons like “The Crossing” with deprecated stats. That’s anything but dirt cheap, though.)

…You told someone they “must be doing something wrong” because they don’t make nearly as much money as you do, and then you call trade secrets when they ask how?

Ladies and gentlemen, the argument against resources being put into making more ultra-expensive gear.

wbonetwo.2196:

lol explain why there should be speed limitation in combat.

No matter how fast characters move, a melee weapon is only going to look right if it hits within a certain distance of the person swinging it. For purpose of discussion, let’s call it five feet.

If characters move too quickly, they can duck in and out of that five-foot range too easily, making attacks too easy to dodge. To account for the large movement speed, ground-targeted spells would have to be bigger, and any kind of slow-build-up attack (like a hammer) is going to struggle to ever hit the target. The basic, in-combat speed is, in a way, determined by the physical reach of melee weapons, what looks “right” with their hit boxes, and the need to make melee practical.

Since none of that applies out of combat, the speed is increased, to let players cover ground more quickly. If they had to standardize in- and out- of combat speeds, that would very likely mean we’d just have to move more slowly out of combat.

For a fun bit of perspective, Elementalists recently acquired a trait that gives out-of-combat speed, or “superspeed.” It lasts 1.5sec, triggers on attuning to air, and is a major trait, so I assume it’s useful. Normalizing combat speed to non-combat speed would be something like giving that trait to every class, permanently, with no trait requirement. It would seriously mess with the flow of combat.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_chest

They’re exceedingly rare, of course, but it does happen.

Malediktus.9250:

Just because its a lot of work doesnt mean its a terrible idea. The only reason Anet is unlikely to do it is because items you can buy for gold doesnt make them any direct profit.

I think that’s missing the point, to some extent. It’s a lot of work for Anet, which means it costs money. There’s only so much money to go around, so it’s less a case of “Let’s get normal-cost armor AND super prestige armor!” and more a case of “We can have one or the other.” If they’re going to put new armor sets in the game, I’m going to be more disappointed that they cost 750g+ than if they cost, say, on par with current t3 armor, or even cheaper for 56g in the gem store. (I know, people hate gem store armors. Point is, 750g, or a similar price, is going to push it far out of the budget of too many players.)

If there’s an armor set that only the top 1% of players can use, the effort put into developing it mostly only benefits that 1%. If the armor set is available to even the top, say, 20%, that’s directly usable by 20 times as many people. I won’t say there shouldn’t be any prestigious/expensive rewards for players, but I’m wary about rewards being introduced solely with that intent, especially when it’s something as popularly-wanted as new armor skins.

If you’re tired of looking like a lot of people, giving everyone more options is going to help solve that, and not every prestige-chaser is going to immediately gravitate to the new top-tier armor. It’s the similar to how I see so many people in Abyss/Celestial armor with legendary greatswords. Upping the ceiling just gives everyone with the same attitude the same thing to shoot for, again.

Other list, Thalador. You know, the one with all the armor pieces in it.

Redenaz.8631:

Fused Gauntlets.
Radiant Mantle/ Radiant Vambraces / Radiant Warhelm
Hellfire Mantle / Hellfire Vambraces/ Hellfire Warhelm
Horns of the Dragon
Twisted Watchwork Shoulders
Zephyrite Lightning / Sun / Wind Helm
Mask of the Night

Meta achievement for the next release unlocks a Gasmask Skin.

I don’t even have to mention all the back items that have come out of the Living Story. Are there a fair few skins going into the gemstore? Sure. You could make a case about there being no new complete armor sets added to the game.

But anyone who says there aren’t any new skins, including incomplete sets, added to the game is just plain incorrect.

(Before anyone points out that there aren’t any new sets on that list: Yeah, I’m aware of that. My other post already gave me feelings on that subject.)

I think it’s a terrible idea, and here’s why: That’s 30 new armor sets (2 tiers, 3 weights, 5 races) that, by intent, most people aren’t going to be able to afford to wear. That is a tremendous amount of time and effort basically going to waste, when they could be put into making more options for everyone, or at least most moderately-dedicated/wealthy players. If new armor is super expensive, prestige hounds are going to flock to it like they will with anything pricey, but if they’re reasonably affordable and attractive, more players are going to take advantage of those options, diversifying looks not just among the super wealthy, but among players more generally.

I don’t mind super expensive weapons, because weapons are easier to make (from an art perspective,) and, occasional gripe about Quip or The Dreamer aside, I rarely hear anyone complain about not having enough choices for weapon skins, even without breaking the bank. It’s much more frequent that I hear people complain that they don’t have enough armor options, at any cost, so if they’re going to introduce more cultural armor, I think letting more people wear it would serve the game better than catering to the super-wealthy exclusively would.

Edit: In case my writing isn’t clear, I think making the new tiers excessively expensive is a terrible idea. I have mixed feelings about more cultural armor, generally: I’d like to see it, and I love giving races a chance to express their cultural identity, but I’m also thinking, “Well, if you’re going to make a new suit, it might be a better return on the investment to invest a little more and make it fit every race…”

Zelu.1692:

If you are desperate to get a full set of Celestials for sPvP the lore explanation offers very little solace to you. But if all you are about is PVE, really who cares? It’s not like PVE in this game is hard and requires insane amounts of min-maxing.

Actually, since sPVP gear doesn’t have inherent stats like PvE gear, you can get the all-stat runes/amulets right away, so it’s really only a long-term goal for PvE and WvW, where it’s not exactly an urgent thing to have Celestial gear.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about the time-gating on Celestial gear. It does make it feel more special, to have to make a long-term goal out of it, and it’s not a strenuous long-term goal like Ascended gear…but it can be a hassle. Hrm.

I don’t mind the cost, but I do think it’s ridiculous that it’s not exotic armor. It’s all right for t1 and t2 armor to be rare, but at the cost of t3 armor, it’s not like that’s ever going to be an efficient way to acquire exotics, so there’s no serious harm to the economy in making them exotics. I think we’d survive letting you pick your own stats once with them as well, now that that the stat-determining drop-down from the old Magic Find items is a practical solution for that. Honestly, t3 armor feels like something that was costed and statted before launch and then just fell behind, as people could acquire exotic armor relatively easily.

If I’m already dropping ~20g/piece on armor, I can probably afford to shell out a bit more for transmutation crystals, but it’s still a poor experience to have to do so. At those prices, t3 armor is luxury gear, so it would be nice if it got some luxury treatment. Heck, even making them armor skins instead of armor would be more agreeable, because anyone with that kind of money is probably already wearing exotic armor of their own.

It’s not very high-priority, but it would still be nice to see t3 armor updated a bit. It’s a shame it’s such a hassle, despite its cost.

Dalent.9358:

So the generic theme of the weapon is the same, but the actual implementation is different. Meaning you’d still have a different style of play on a different profession with the same weapon, but all-in-all it would have the same root.

Two quick questions: Why would we want each weapon to be more similar than they already are, with very slight variances between classes? What do we get in return for making each class play in a way that’s less distinct from the others than they currently are?

(There are reasons I can think of, but I’d like to hear which ones you have in mind.)

But…but…How will I stripe my armor, Silver?

Everything is classier with leopard print.

While I agree that giving out Trick-or-Treat Bags in PvP is pointless, otherwise I’m glad it lasts a full month. Even though most of the players have moved on, after having finished the content, it’s still nice that latecomers have had such a long time to do the achievements, do the story, play the activities, etc. The labyrinth is a ghost town (forgive me!) but at least most of the dailies still give opportunities for people to finish up the meta achievement.

While I’m sure it’s frustrating to still be receiving candy from PvP, that’s because it was a misguided idea in the first place; they’d be just as useless there if the event lasted a week as they are now. The problem isn’t the length, but that it happens at all. For the rest of the game, however, the extended Halloween is a good thing.

I might have to see about recording him. I was planning on doing some recording before the end of Halloween, anyway, and Maklain is a very cool NPC.

As for the software, I recommend OBS, which is available for free, isn’t very difficult to setup, and does a good job as far as I can tell. Of course, video recording is a fairly intensive operation, so your results may vary based on your hardware.

I wouldn’t worry about the birthday present; you’ll be getting one for your other character, and, judging from the first year’s birthday present, I don’t know that you’ll miss getting your second, second-year present ASAP. (The first birthday gift was nice, but the second, third, etc. copies of it feel redundant.)

If you’re just not attached to the character, you’ll probably get more enjoyment out of the new Charr character than out of an earlier birthday.

Intuos.3210:

I have so far farmed 10 stacks of the trick or treat bags (mainly from clocktower)
Like 50 large candy bags from the labyrinth
Haven’t opened any of those yet, that might take hours lol
I also already have 3 cobs by turning in 3,000 candy corn.
So yes, it’s A LOT of work but that’s how it needs to be.
So when you see someone with the Bloody Prince Mini you will know
that they either put a lot of effort to get one or wasted lots of gold for it.
If it was easy and EVERYONE had the bloody prince mini, it wouldn’t be so exclusive.

Once you open up those bags, I’d be curious to hear how many cobs you can make, considering the mini Prince takes 20 cobs.

I’m afraid the scale of the grind necessary goes past “Wow, that’s impressive!” to “Wow, that’s…How long did that take you? Was it worth it?”

I’m not against time-consuming goals in the game, but I’m not convinced Halloween was the ideal place for it, and not for this ratio of cost:reward.

With that list, I was specifically responding to Eilaner and Thalador, who didn’t say anything about whether skins were permanent or not. With phrases like “every new skin goes to the gem store,” I didn’t see the need to write in “every non-time-limited new skin” for them just to improve their complaint. Just going off what they wrote, and what they wrote was “Putting ALL skins in the gem-store is just disgusting.” Emphasis on the “all.”

I try not to put words in the mouths of other people to make their arguments worse, but I’m not going to do it to make their argument better, either.

How much would you pay for something like that?

So with what you’re suggesting…

I could pick Fire and Water as my two attunements.

I could use the weapon swap toggle ([~]) to switch between their skill bars.

I could assign four skills from Air/Earth to my F1-F4 keys?

I’m not sure that’s much of an improvement. It only limits me to 14/20 skills, but I can choose which six I want to leave off, so it doesn’t make it much easier to balance, since I’m just going to pick the weaker/less useful skills anyway, which are the ones making the least difference in the balance. I should think the added complication would actually make it a bit more difficult to balance, since the devs would have to think, “Okay, here’s potential builds X, Y, and Z with <weapon>” rather than “Here’s the build for <weapon>.” It’s fewer options, but the options are more complicated to evaluate.

What would they base it on?

This is a dumb question, I’m sure, but why would you want that?

(Both because I’m curious and because, if you want someone to take the idea seriously, it might be a good idea to say why it’s a change worth making.)

warllockmaster.1379:

Currently I am greatly sad over all the cool ordinary looking armors I can get for pvp, but not even half of them are reachable in pve.
Yet Pvp has full access to all the looks we use in pve.

So yeah armor for all.-why is it fair the pvpers got access to any armor? While we pve are only left to get some of them?

Half? I think that sounds like an extreme estimate. I’m aware of the Tribal set, but how many other options are PvP exclusive?

The Tribal set seems like a weird oversight, but other than that, I don’t think there’s any problem here.

Leamas.5803:

When I started playing you could buy The Legend on the TP for 60g, now it’s 722g, over a 1200% increase in just over a year. This is the definition of runaway inflation and it is largely caused by the gem to gold conversion. There are no limits placed on how much gold can be injected in to the economy and this is a bad thing. There is a reason the US just doesn’t print more money to pay off their debts…it would make the dollar worthless and would destroy their economy.

You think the rise in prices is mostly from people converting gems to gold, and not, say, from dungeon-running, the Crown Pavilion, Scarlet Invasions, champ farming, or even the normal progress of people just playing the game over a full year?

Unlike a real world currency, the game is required to print money constantly as players earn it. Over time, that inflates the currency supply (devaluing each unit and raising prices,) unless the currency is removed/destroyed, via the TP fee, NPC vendors, waypoints, etc., because there’s more of that currency floating around.

The more people convert gems to gold, the less gold they get per gem, and so I’m skeptical of it as a cause of inflation, or at least as a significant one. It enables a player to bypass the unequal distribution of wealth between serious farmers and others by whipping out the credit card, but I don’t think it creates a substantial amount of gold (since the exchange rate is based on players exchanging currencies, and there is a fee removing gold.) In other words, prices might be lower without it, but I’m not sure they would be, or how much lower.

Farmers farm to pay high prices, which raises the prices even higher.

Rukh.9287:

-snipped for brevity-

Huh, really? I’ll occasionally equip a piece of dropped gear on an alt, but I usually don’t have much use for it, and alts outgrow gear so quickly that I never consider buying gear off the TP until I’m at the end game, and never for blue/green stuff. I’d be curious to hear how other players approach the subject.

If half my skills are generic (1-5) and only half (6-0) are class-specific, my class identity is going to feel less important and distinct than if 1-0 are all class-specific. I might still be able to select my old class skills as utility skills, but that’s still only half the skills I’m actually using, and they’re left to compete against all the other class skills for those very few slots. Under this system, my character is mechanically defined half by my weapon and half by my class, which is comparable to the existing system, but the flavor of my class only then touches half of my skills. That’s a loss of identity.

I would rather my basic character abilities be determined by their personal abilities with a given weapon, as seen through the lens of their class identity, rather than them merely being a vehicle for the weapon’s abilities. That can be interesting with kits, banners, and conjures, which are free of the economic implications of the system, but I wouldn’t want to see it as the basic rule of the game.

As for balance, I’m extremely skeptical that so many weapons could be given interesting abilities that don’t shake out to be unbalanced. Even now, when class skills are restricted to the support skills of that class, there are weapons in that are generally more useful than others, and this suggestion would introduce a lot of new abilities, or combinations of abilities, that have to be balanced with the support skills of each possible class. And since they’re tied to equipment, it’s not enough to simply get “a short bow;” you might have to get a 150g shortbow to have the same skills as the most popular build, or else fall behind. And instead of just competing with others in your class who want that build, you may very well be competing with everyone for that same build.

Most people probably don’t gear up from common drops (using karma vendors and personal story on the way to 80, and rarer gear after that,) so the change doesn’t seem like it would create much more demand for crafted goods…even though it sounds like it will flood people with crafting materials. If I don’t like crafting, auctioning small-cost crafting materials isn’t any more exciting than auctioning greens/blues. Gathering nodes become even less interesting (to the non-crafter) because most drops become crafting material, unlike the current situation, where gear drops can end up as crafting material (along with essences of luck,) or be sold to vendors/TP, or equipped (rarely) or be tossed in the Mystic Forge.

While having mobs drop materials might sound more efficient, doing away with salvaging kits, it doesn’t sound more fun or interesting, and I’m not convinced it would have the economic effects you’re imagining.

To be honest, I don’t like this idea at all, even if it were practical. It makes skin way more important than it currently is. “I like hammer X, but I want the abilities of hammer Y…” would be a serious problem. Right now, whether I use the most affordable weapon option (at the exotic level, anyway) or something super-expensive like Mjölnir, it doesn’t matter. Even with ascended/legendary weapons, the stats make a marginal difference. If suddenly Mjönir had super cool, powerful abilities, demand for an already outrageously priced skin goes up even further, and those are new skills most players will never even be able to afford, so it’s only fun for the in-game rich or lucky.

The homogenization of weapon skills erodes the distinction between classes. Basically, a Mesmer would play like half a Mesmer (depending on utility skills for flavorful abilities, with weapon skills being the same as a Warrior using the same sword.) Thief’s Dual Wield mechanic? Gone. Elementalist Attunements? Gone. Some classes might be able to survive some shuffling around of their abilities, but there are class mechanics that would be completely unrecognizable, and that’s a loss of some interesting gameplay elements.

Rukh.9287:

In other words, the weapon you wield suddenly matters. You get that legendary sword, it’s not cool because it has a flashy skin and on a spreadsheet marginally increases your damage over seconds by a fraction, but it has unique abilities!

It sounds good on paper, but this is a terrible idea in practice. If the Legendary weapon abilities are extremely good, everyone without the Legendary is at a potentially serious disadvantage, and that goes for any rare skin with unique abilities tied to it. If the Legendary weapon abilities are average, then people are going to either have to put up with abilities they might not like in return for the skin, or they’ll have to transmute it onto something else, depending on how transmutation works in this new system. It becomes a nightmare to balance, because the system has a ton of potential abilities, some of which are extremely hard to obtain, all of which have to be balanced when used in conjunction with any set of profession-based utility skills.

I don’t say all this to be mean, but out of appreciation for the current system and what it does well. I like the idea that, if I like Staff abilities for my class, I get access to those early on, and no one is going to have a big advantage over me just because they managed to farm/find a rare Staff with better skills. I like that classes have their unique abilities integrated into their weapon skills, so that a Staff Elementalist and a Staff Mesmer don’t play the same way.

I wouldn’t count on it. Flame & Frost did that, but they’ve significantly reworked how they do Living Story releases since then, and I think it’s far more likely that each one will have a unique meta-achievement.

The problem with connecting them is that if the number is too low, players who have completed the previous release will finish the meta almost immediately, and if it’s made higher to compensate, it becomes impractical for players who skipped the previous release. It’s much cleaner to keep them separate and give them separate rewards.

If you don’t have the Gift of Quartz (home instance node from Bazaar of the Four Winds,) you just have to buy quartz off the trading post. It’s not copper-cheap, but it’s not insanely-priced, either. I have the node, and I still occasionally buy quartz off the TP in order to speed up the process. (Since you need 25 crystals, it can take several days to make a charged one via mining the node, unless you get lucky.)

Use Transmutation Crystals. You can buy them in the gem store, or, rarely, receive them from Black Lion Chests and Daily Reward Chests.

Considering ~68 is enough to make one of each ascended weapon that uses them, I think you’ve probably got more than enough for your needs. Probably way more than you need, considering the cost of them. (Even just the ectos that went into them are no tiny cost to toss around.)

At the least, I hope you’ve spread them around between your weaponsmith, artificer, and huntsman, for the crafting XP.

Danikat.8537:

If you’re actually just playing solo and don’t want people following you around, turn it off don’t leave it up and keep yelling at them to go away.

Has this actually happened? o_o

-facepalm-

How do people that want personally challenging (as opposed to group challenging) content feel about sPvP? I’ve never touched it, because I’m never a serious PvP player in games, but it seems like that stacking strong players against strong players would be very challenging. Is it too unbalanced? Is the inability to use your PvE/WvW rewards too off-putting?

(I’m honestly asking, because I’d like to hear what people think of “PvP as the ultimate scaling difficulty PvE.”)

You might want to post some details, like how many questions it is and how long it will take. I clicked on it, but changed my mind after seeing there was no indication of how long it is.

Also, while surveys are interesting, keep in mind their limits, too, like bias. For example, people who feel strongly one way or the other about it are more likely to complete it, the forum (and the subset of people who take the survey) are not necessarily representative of the player population as a whole, etc. You might get quantifiable results, but be careful how you present the ones you get. Surveys and polling are relatively easy to manipulate, both to get the results you want and to present the results you get in a favorable light, so be aware of what you’re doing every step of the way.

WvW Season 1 is listed under Living Story for achievements, so it could reasonably go here or there. None of the posters can move it, and if the mods were going to move it, I think they already would have.

As for scrapping leagues, I can see an argument either way, for having the league (fresh competition, a new event to follow along with,) and not having it (everyone stays paired up against their rivals.) There’s no strictly right answer, but it makes sense that they’d try something new. If it proves widely unpopular, they might have second thoughts before hosting season 2, but as long as the event is temporary, I think it’s a worthwhile experiment.

Guesting around a bit first is smart, so you can get a feel for a server, especially if you usually play at a certain time of day.

Really, I’m sure any of the upper-ranked WvW servers will probably be good, simply because that suggests they have a high population. I’ve been on Jade Quarry since launch, and I can’t say I’ve ever felt the world was too short on people, even if some areas are naturally more crowded than others.

This would be handy; whenever I create a character, I either steer away from head accessories or make them very dull/unnoticeable, because I have no idea what color scheme a character is going to take to eighty levels later.

Ah, that’s a good point, the banker golem is only useful on one character. Drat. It all seemed like such a neat comparison to me. e__e

I don’t generally have much use for the account bag idea, but I’m sure it would be more useful for someone who uses a lot of gem store convenience items. I can afford to give each of my characters all the food, salvage kits, etc. they’re going to use, but I can’t afford to keep each of them stocked with revive orbs, armor repair cans, etc. “just in case” I want to use them.

I think it’s interesting to compare this to the Banker Golem item. The account bag is basically a permanent version of the Banker golem, restricted to a special, small bank tab.

It might sound like a strange comparison, but it serves the same function of letting you instantly access items stored between all of your characters.

I don’t really have a point about whether it’s a good idea or a bad idea; I just thought it was interesting how two seemingly different ideas could be functionally so similar.

Wanze.8410:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Currency-Exchange-Inflation/first#post3158181

Darn that John Smith and his interesting-but-cryptic answers. I’m afraid all that post confirms for me is that the exchange rate is affected by the demand both ways, which we already knew. It doesn’t tell us whether or not there is a particular number somewhere that represents the Black Lion’s store of “gems available for gold exchange,” or another for their store of “gold available for gold exchange.”

Edit: Let me stop me right there. Between me writing and me posting, Bellagh linked to this post by John Smith, which does answer my question a lot more neatly than the “Exchange Inflation” question does. I’m leaving the rest of what I had written in a spoiler as a thought exercise for anyone who’s interested in how the system could be designed, but that’s all it’s good for now.

Infamous Darkness.3284:

by a small technicality you are wrong on your second point gems can be earned in game through achievement chests, I believe at a rate of 400gems per 5000 achievement points, not great but still and option.

When you say “your second point,” I can’t tell if you’re referring to the original post or to the post you’re quoting from. That technicality doesn’t apply to the quoted post, since Yalora is discussing the opening day of the game, and achievement point rewards weren’t available until Bazaar of the Four Winds, half a year later. At launch, the only way to get gems was to buy them with cash or exchange gold for them.

(It does apply to the OP, where it’s a small oversight.)

Weapons: Super Adventure Box weapons. (Regular/King Toad/Storm Wizard recolors.) Sovereign weapons. The toy weapon skins from Wintersday 2012. Ascended weapons weren’t tied into an event, but they were a new set of skins. Zenith skins. There have been a lot of gem-store-based weapons, but a fair few outside of that, too.

There haven’t been any new non-gem armor sets. In perfectly seriousness, I don’t mind that. There are plenty of existing armor sets that I do like, so the collectible unique pieces satisfies my craving for new accessories without needing a full set. I’ve gotten a lot of content I’ve enjoyed for free, and I’m not the least bit bitter about them charging for armor sets.

I suppose I’m looking at it from a perspective of “I bought this game for its launch content, expecting the occasional GW1-styled holiday hat. I’ve gotten a lot more than that, so I don’t mind them charging for even more stuff on top of it.” It’s been an enormously good value for the money I paid.

Skritt crack me up, but what on Earth would we need more races for? We already have five, adapting armor is problematic enough for five, and once you get past the racial story arc, your race just isn’t that important. So, it would be a lot of new content that’s mostly accessible only to new characters, without offering much that isn’t already offered by the existing five races.

I’m not going to pick at each class suggestion, or I’ll be here all day, but I’m not convinced we need them. Class balance is sticky enough with the existing classes, and I can’t say I’ve been through all of them yet, either, or even all the ones I’m personally interested in.

New weapons could be interesting, or, alternatively, existing weapons implemented for existing classes. There are some advantages to that method, in that they save on introducing a lot of new art (per weapon) that can only be used by classes that use that weapon, they can raise demand for less popular weapons, the weapons are already seeded throughout the world without having to plant them individually or limit obtaining them to new areas, and so on.

Whenever I see large-scale suggested introductions like this, I stop and ask, “What does that offer us that we don’t have already? Is there a more efficient way to get that result using existing resources?”